SEXUAL SELECTION IN BIRDS. 427 



remember, however, that I was not here from the beginning. Now, 

 after a longer interval, consequent on the breaking up aforesaid, 

 three birds have come back — but again a peasant intervenes, 

 and for a time all seems over. This was from about nine in the 

 morning. 



April 11th. — Shortly after this there is another little exhibi- 

 tion—though the word is too pronounced a one — on the part of 

 the Eedshanks. I notice a little collection of them, about a 

 dozen strong, not on the same bare sandy space as yesterday, 

 but in the grass, some way beyond it. Amongst these there are 

 the same little ascents, the hanging, for a little, on quivering 

 wings, above the assembly-place, the sweeping away and little 

 flights round and about, with the ultimate return. The features, 

 however, are not quite so marked and special, nor are there so 

 many flights and returns. There is, too, one other point of 

 interest. Amongst the Eedshanks there is a bird of the same 

 general shape, but noticeably larger, much darker — indeed, 

 almost black — about the head and neck, and with the feathers 

 of the neck thicker. This bird must, I think, be a male 

 Buff, whose nuptial adornments are only just beginning to 

 grow. He, however, flies up and about with the Eedshanks, 

 stands amongst them, and acts, generally, as though he were 

 one of them. 



It was only on the above two occasions that I noticed this 

 tendency on the part of Eedshanks thus to form social gather- 

 ings, by which, of course, I mean something quite separate from 

 mere flocking later in the year. It is easy to see how, from such 

 beginnings, habits exactly like those of the Euff, in this respect, 

 might arise, for with the return, many times in succession, to 

 any one spot, for any particular purpose, the localization of 

 special activities may almost be said to have begun, and the 

 more any place, during the breeding season, were frequented, the 

 more usual would it become for the sexes to court and pair there. 

 Yet this, probably, would not come about till the place-instinct 

 had gained considerable strength. For the black-headed bird 

 which I have noticed, I still think it must have been a Euff, 

 though I cannot well account for the disparity in size not striking 

 me as greater than it did. A Eeeve is not coloured like this, nor 

 does she seem to me to be at all larger than a Eedshanks. I 



